


Catharsis

by ErikaWilliams



Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Game Spoilers, Gen, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-07
Updated: 2017-07-07
Packaged: 2018-11-28 18:50:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11423979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErikaWilliams/pseuds/ErikaWilliams
Summary: Aloy has a special gift for Erend, one that would be impossible without her Focus.





	Catharsis

Well, it wasn’t perfect, but it was the best Aloy could do with her limited knowledge and lack of practice. She wiped her hand across her brow as she sat back on the crate she had been using as a work table for the past few weeks in an abandoned storeroom King Avad had given her permission to utilize. It was hot in that little storeroom, and she had been working nonstop for hours. She needed privacy to do her work, and almost anywhere in Meridian, a member of the Vanguard might spot her. And they were the last people she needed seeing what she was doing. They would be sure to report any of her tinkering back to their captain.

There wasn’t anything else she could do with it without the risk of destroying everything. The files had been spotty to begin with, and she feared if she messed around with them any longer she would damage them beyond repair. Time to deliver, then. If nothing else it would get her out of that storeroom.

She still wasn’t used to the full heat of the Meridian sun, so she walked as close as she could to the shade of the buildings as she made her way to the Sun King’s palace. A few people recognized her as she made her way through the crowded streets, but no one stopped her. She was starting to think that some of them were afraid of her. The Carja guard greeted her as she made her way across the bridge, but no one moved to stop her. 

Erend was usually easy enough to find. After the attack on Avad’s life, he spent most of his on duty hours patrolling the entrance to the palace with a few of his Vanguard. And they all seemed to be on duty hours now. He had really taken Ersa’s words to heart.

Sure enough, there he was, coming around the corner right on schedule, two of the Vanguard trailing closely behind him. “Erend!” she called, waving once to make sure she had his attention.

“Aloy! It’s been a while!”

She supposed it had been a while since she had stopped by to see him, but she had wanted to surprise Erend with this visit.

“Sorry, I’ve been busy.” It was nice to know that no longer how long she had been away, he would always be ready to give her a warm welcome back to Meridian. “Can I talk to you privately for a moment?” she asked, indicating her head away from the two guards. They would talk, she knew, they always did. There were times she thought she couldn’t get within twenty feet of Erend without at least half the Vanguard planning their wedding. Pulling him away for a private conversation was only going to add fuel to the fire that had ignited the moment she had approached them.

“Of course,” he said, leading her away while indicating to the Vanguard that they should continue on their rounds. Sure enough, as they parted ways she could see the guards lean closer to each other to start their gossip already. They could have at least waited until they were out of sight. Erend directed her to a secluded balcony of the Sun King’s palace where very few people might happen to chance by. “Is something wrong? Is someone else planning an attack against the Sun King?”

“No, nothing like that,” she said quickly, putting her hands out in what she hoped was a reassuring manner. He was really taking this job seriously. Or she had been so dismissive that he thought the only reason she would ever come to see him was if there was some type of disaster about to fall upon Meridian. That was her fault. Just because she was busy was not an excuse for her to be so negligent of her friends. “I just wanted to show you something.”

“Oh?”

She had his attention now, and she quickly found the file she had prepared for this moment on her Focus. She moved to stand beside him and judged their height difference so she could still, hopefully, control the focus without actually being able to see it. She should have tested this with somebody else first, but she didn’t want to bother Talanah with it and she wasn’t sure who she could trust to not report her activities back to Erend.

“I just need you to put this on,” she said, taking the Focus off of her ear and placing it onto his. 

“I really don’t need to wear your jewelry,” he started to protest, and annoyingly he took a step backwards. She took an educated guess as to where the correct control she needed was and lunged in front of him to activate it before he could get much further out of alignment. She must have hit the right spot because he froze, and she quietly took a step back.

She hadn’t known how he would react to such a gift, but she hadn’t expected silence. What she had managed to put together wasn’t long, but she had set it to automatically repeat for him. Or maybe she had done something wrong and there was no telling what he was seeing. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe she should step in and fix it before this situation could get any worse.

“Ersa… It’s Ersa!” Or maybe he had just been too stunned to react, since he was certainly smiling now. She could only think of one other time that she had seen him smile like that. “When? Where?” He turned around to look at her. “How?”

“The Focuses can record what’s going on around us,” she said, smiling up at him. The recording was still playing, and she was probably standing next to Ersa now. “Sometimes they even record things without our knowledge.”

“But you never met Ersa. Not like this.” Not vibrant and whole and alive. Not when she had been the competent captain of the Vanguard.

“No,” she said slowly, choosing her next words carefully. “But Olin did. He would see her at the Sun Palace and around the city.” Ersa doing her job, Ersa shopping, Ersa laughing at something Erend had said that wasn’t recorded. Moments of Ersa being alive and happy that Erend would not have been able to see again.

“Thank you, Aloy,” he said, taking the Focus off and handing it back to her. “For letting me see her again” She smiled up at him as she reattached the Focus to her ear. “I didn’t know how much I needed to see that until now.”

“I told you I’d always have a minute for you,” she said and suddenly she didn’t know what to say to him. He should probably get back to his patrol, and she was sure there was something out there in the great wide world that needed her attention. She didn’t want to go quite yet, and she really didn’t want him to leave just yet either.

“I believe you promised me two.”

“I said maybe two,” she responded with a chuckle. That felt like it had been a lifetime ago. Maybe she should have offered him three.

“So, you’ve had that Focus since you were a child, right?”

“Yeah,” she said, defensively raising her hand to even though she knew Erend would never take it from her. It was just hard to trust people when it came to her Focus.

“Are there any recordings of the man who raised you on that thing?”

“I don’t know.” She had never looked; she had never had the courage to look. But just like Erend had Ersa’s final moments in that dank cell burned into his memory, she had that final image of Rost before the explosion claimed him. Maybe she did deserve the same gift she had given to Erend.

“If there are, I’d love to see them,” he told her with an inviting tilt of his head. “If you would let me, of course.”

“Let me see if I can find something,” she said, sitting down on a nearby bench in the shade of the palace. She started looking through her files, watching any previews of recordings to see if Rost was in any of them. Unlike Olin’s Focus, hers was full of vast landscapes devoid of any life. There were some of Rost though, although none of the ones she found showed her in the most flattering light.

Erend hesitated a moment longer before he sat down next to her. It wasn’t a very big bench and she tensed at his sudden proximity. It wasn’t fair for her to expect him to stand in the hot sun in all that armor while she looked through who knew how many files in her quest for a good one of Rost. At least he did not smell as strongly of that Oseram brew like he had that first time she had met up with him in Meridian.

There. That one might work. She watched it through to make sure there was nothing she wouldn’t want Erend to see. Then she watched it again. And again, a fond smile curling onto her lips. It was an old memory, one from when she had been about eight or nine. Rost was teaching her about different kinds of machines using small wooden figurines he had carved. Those figurines were still in their cabin, waiting for someone to teach the next generation. Yes. She watched as Rost handed her an exquisitely carved Ravager. This would do.

“This is Rost,” she said, handing her Focus back over to Erend without stopping the recording. She had missed him, more than she had realized.

Erend was silent while he watched the recording. Now that she had seen it again, she remembered every detail of that day, the cold bite to the air, the smooth wood under her fingertips.

“It’s nice to get the chance to meet him,” Erend said as he handed her Focus back to her. She put it back on and stopped the playback. It was good to see Rost again, but it would do her no good to swell on the past. “Thanks for everything, Aloy.”

She should go, even though she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to be doing. There was sure to be a machine causing havoc somewhere. There always was. But there was a nice breeze up at the Sun King’s Palace, and it was almost cool in the shade. Leaving would require going back out into the heat. And her present company was not as bad as she had once thought. She wasn’t sure he would want her there though. She might distract him from important guarding duties.

“My patrol is almost over,” Erend told her while she was still deciding on her next course of action. “Would you like to stay and talk for a while?” That wouldn’t be the worst thing for her to do at the moment. And she had promised him two minutes of her time. “I could tell you stories about Ersa,” he suggested like that would be the deciding factor. “She would have loved you.”

“Then maybe I could tell you some stories about Rost,” she suggested.

“That sounds great.”

“He would not have loved you.”

He laughed next to her, his arm brushing up against hers. “I guess I kind of deserved that.”

“But I think he would like who you’re becoming.”


End file.
